What if the common belief that the losses in traditional pay TV subscribers are due to mainstream video streaming services is wrong? Or, that belief is an oversimplification of a complex problem? Not only is there an increase in video-streaming subscriptions for SVoD services like Netflix and “live streaming” services such as DirecTV Now, there […]
Archive | IPTV
U.S. IPTV Providers Are No Longer Bucking the Trend
U.S. cable and satellite TV providers have been buffeted in recent years by subscriber loss. Indeed, the only segment in the U.S. pay TV market in the past several years to routinely post net subscriber gains have been the IPTV providers—principally AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS. But the telco run of subscriber gains that marked […]
Will IP Transform the Broadcast Industry?
It might be argued that the difference between new video-service providers and the old ones (broadcast via cable, satellite and terrestrial) is that the new ones are simply using a different pipe (Internet) to get content into homes and to personal devices. This is true to a point but, of course, overly simplistic. There are […]
Smart TV? More Like, Spy TV
In 2013, we noted how the TV industry’s push for new revenue streams, in tandem with the migration to IP technology, entangled the industry in some sensitive privacy issues. Fast forward to 2016 and things have changed—for the worse. In 2013, it was the integration of pay TV services with social network data that raised […]
FreeTV Alliance Seeks to Keep Free DTH Momentum Strong in Europe
On September 12, 2014, three European free-to-air satellite operators—UK’s Freesat, France’s Fransat and Italy’s Tivusat—joined forces to form the FreeTV Alliance. Shortly thereafter, in October, Germany’s HD Plus jumped on board with the group. The goal behind the alliance is to harmonize the production of set top boxes, Smart TVs and other devices for satellite […]
Curious Changes Coming in the Video Encoding Business
All these TVs, set-top boxes and gadgets with IP addresses are blowing the cob webs out of a business model or two. Traditional pay TV providers are scrambling to hang on to customers amidst the streaming video surge, appliance makers are pondering if consumers really want their smartphones to talk to their dishwashers, and now […]
U.S. Pay TV Market: No Where to Go But Down—Or Sideways
The U.S. pay TV market ended 2014 much like it began: operators in IPTV and satellite continued to add subscribers while cable companies continued to shed them. Actually, it’s slightly more complicated than that. Dish Network ended the year down nearly 80,000 subs while DirecTV added almost 100,000 new customers to its rolls to keep […]
Are Cord Cutters (Finally) Here?
The traditional pay TV market has taken a turn for the worse in the United States. Cable TV operators continue to bleed subscribers, collectively shedding roughly half-a-million subscribers in the last quarter. Satellite operators, which had managed to hold and grow their subscriber base at the same time that cable was losing ground, have also […]
Will Pay Providers Turn the Tables on Game Consoles?
A growing number of consumers have turned to video game consoles for more than games. Streaming video services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime form an increasingly important component of a game console’s value proposition (which is why Nintendo made a big splash for their new TVii feature on the forthcoming Wii U). Even cable […]
Analog to Digital Switchover and Asian Growth to Foster Moderate Growth
As countries continue to transition from analog to digital terrestrial TV, set-top boxes (STBs) and Integrated Digital TVs (IDTVs) that receive terrestrial signals are in high demand. Digital TV receiver shipments, including both STBs and IDTVs, are expected to continue rising in the near future. DTC estimates that nearly 340 million combined units shipped in […]